Upgrade (2018) - Movie Review

Hello, WORLD!!!! How the hell are ya? Have y’all recovered from Avengers: Infinity War yet? Good, cause I got another movie you might need to recover from. I just left Leigh Whannell’s latest movie Upgrade last night. Now, since it’s been a minute since I’ve done a review, let me just tell you if I think it's worth watching right now after I give you a quick synopsis.  

Upgrade is about a mechanic who's wife has been murdered after their semi auto-piloted driving car crashes. the mechanic himself has been left paralyzed by the ordeal but a former client of his offers him a microchip implant that would not only give him back the use of his body but also help him find the men responsible. Bottom line, I recommend this movie. Out of 5 stars I’d give it 3 1/2. 





Still here? Good. Let me see if I still know how to review a movie in a traditional sense. Bare with me, WORLD. I'm a bit rusty. *Ahem*




    Directed by Leigh Whannell of Saw and Insidious fame, Upgrade is bloody at parts and action packed but mainly a straight forward telling of a futuristic revenge movie. One can probably guess how this film ends as I did. I saw the ending coming a mile away then it happened just as I thought it would. Then, it didn't.   

    Upgrade happens in the not so distant future. A mechanic named Grey

Logan Marshall-Green

(Logan Marshall-Green) repairs a vehicle for a Google-like technology company's wunderkind CEO Eron (Harrison Gilbertson). After repairing the vehicle Grey and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo), an employee of a company that's somewhat a rival of Eron's own company, drop the vehicle off at Eron's beach-house (literally, it's a house under a beach). While there, Eron introduces the couple to STEM, a microchip Eron touts as the future of evolution. Grey laments that it'll mean "10 guys on the unemployment line", to which Eron says nothing. 

     As the couple head home in a semi automated vehicle provided by Asha's company, the self-driving car's system fails, the car overturns and the couple appear to suffer only minor injuries until a team of men show up, shoot Grey in the neck and murder Asha. A few months later, Eron visits a paralyzed Grey offering a chance to get the use of his body back with help from the STEM chip. Of course, it wouldn't be a movie if Grey didn't take Eron up on this offer, right? And of course, the experiment works, Grey gets the use of his body back, and all is right with the world for all of 5 minutes until Grey hears a voice in his head. 

    STEM turns out to be much more than a second chance for Grey to have full body movement. Much more. Among other things, it can also communicate with the owner of the body it's been implanted in. This turns out to be a plus for Grey, who is so not happy with the job the police, led by Officer Cortez (Get Out's Betty Gabriel), have been doing trying to identify his assailants. Apparently, having the video of the assault thanks to recording drones everywhere still can't lead the police to the perpetrators. Good old STEM saw the video once and seemed to gain more knowledge about the assailants identities than the police did. 

   What follows during rest of the movie could best be described as a mix of Taken and The Matrix. Marshall-Green's presence through out the film was the real draw for me. Even if he acted a little wooden in certain scenes, you knew his motivation and saw it clearly on his face. Gabriel, who was underused until a little past the two thirds of the movie was done, was very effective and charismatic as a somewhat ineffective officer but again, I will say she was underused. On another note, I do think adding her to this movie was inspired casting. This movie and Get Out could almost play off of each other if one watched them both at the same time. As Eron, Gilbertson was giving off those creepy vibes that actors like Crispin Glover or Dane DeHaan provide so easily. 

     Still, this film isn't without it's flaws. The bad guys, lead by Benedict Hardie's Fisk, didn't stand out much to me but I believe that was because the plot didn't require them to. The movie looked fantastic at first but as the movie went on, the future started to look more and more generic. It doesn't distract you from the movie once everything gets rolling so it's not really a big deal but this movie could've been set in the present day and the movie would've still worked. Also, the dialogue was groan inducing at times. I literally groaned at the dialogue... a lot. And for this movie to be somewhat of a horror movie, it's not horrifying at all. It's quite the opposite. When I wasn't groaning I was LMAO. I wasn't the only one either. The audience I viewed this movie with was laughing as often as I was. There's two maybe three scenes that even come close to horror but even those got plenty of laughs from the crowd. It's not Shakespeare, for sure, but if you wanted action and a few good laughs plus a great plot twist, then this movie is for you. Overall, the film was great. I can't wait to see it again. 

     
    
 

A Is For Apps (Like Agar.io And Alchemy), An #AToZChallenge 2016 Post

Guess who's Biz-ack? Long time no see right? Well, things have been crazy for me lately. I'll get into what's been up with me in a post real soon...maybe. Here's a short version if you're impatient: my main problem is I've been somewhat focused distracted, by that I mean I've been focused on doing so much, I'm not accomplishing as much as I want to accomplish. I'm trying to read tons of books while finishing my first 2 books, start another business because while my blogs do provide some income I don't have enough readers to mainly just blog plus I'm not blogging enough to gain more readers because of other endeavors. 

Whatever.

At least I'm blogging now and I ain't even got to the topic yet. You see what I mean by distracted. Well, the gist of this A To Z Challenge is every Monday through Friday in April, bloggers like myself will write one post a day for every letter in the alphabet. Today's the first day so today's letter is A. 

For my A post, I've decided to write about one of my other biggest distractions: apps. These mobile phone applications are now multi-million dollar industries in their own right. Don't believe me? Just Google how much money Fb paid for Instagram, or how much they were willing to pay Twitter back when Twitter first got started to buy that app. Or think about the fact that recently Nintendo and Sony's Playstation division both are putting out apps on mobile phones now and not on they're own systems. Nintendo's first app, Miimoto was released today. Spoiler alert: That's probably gonna be my M post, lbvs. Or figure out how some of the most profitable game apps on these phones are actually free to download but make money from in app sales. Or advertisements, those annoying ads that pop up in the middle of a game so much that you're almost forced to buy the paid version just to keep your sanity. 

 I'm sure you know what apps are.
We all know what apps are. But they're are sooooooooo many of them it's hard to find the good ones without a recommendation so I'll be pointing out a few good ones to you over the course of this month. 

I ate a Donald Trump that was trying to eat a George Bush!

While I'm on that subject, I might as well tell you about my current newest addiction, a blob-eat-blob app called Agar.io. You're a blob in a sea of blobs, some of which are computer generated but most of

Then Obama ate me. I hope it ate that green blob on it's left!

which are other app users. The purpose of this very, very simple game is to become the biggest blob on the game and you do that by eating other blobs. Sounds easy right?





Well, it is. Eat until you're the biggest blob on the game. The problem is that it's the only rule on the game so EVERYBODY is trying to do the same thing. Another issue is speed. When you're a tiny dot, you're a speedster but just like in real life, the more weight you add the slower you move. You can chase a smaller blob forever and never catch it if it doesn't get as big as you and if it does that, then it's your turn to run. The only real chance a larger blob has of catching a smaller blob is if it spits a piece of itself at the smaller blob, essentially splitting itself in half which reminds me of my next piece of advise. Be careful!! All blobs aren't healthy for you! They're some green blobs with little spikes on them that will break you down into multiple much smaller, easier to eat blobs. If you're a smaller blob, these green blobs are like safe zones; the much bigger blogs will not want to eat you if you're around one of those things. 

I love this game now. The longest game I've played lasted 10 minutes. The quickest games don't even last 5... those other blobs are thirsty! If you can manage to eat like a few 100 minidots, you won't have as many predators as you do when you first start but there is almost ALWAYS another blob bigger than you somewhere out there.

That's it for now, WORLD. It's good to be back too. Thanks for having me again. Outta.

...into these icons.

Turn these icons...

WAITWAITWAITWAIT!! I almost forgot! I mentioned TWO apps in the title, right? The second game, Alchemy, isn't a typical type game but it's the first game I really liked on Androids, which makes it perfect for this post. The
game is a game for thinkers with a sense of humor. You start off with four icons: earth, wind, fire, and water. The object is to combine those icons to create over 300 more icons. For example when  you combine fire and air, you get energy. When you combine air and air, you get wind. When you combine earth and fire, you get lava. Combine lava and water and you'll get stone. This game is one for thinkers but almost anybody will enjoy it. NOW I'm outta, for real this time. 

W is for Wa.. (#ABizzeePick or 2) (#AtoZChallenge)

Today is the last day of the A to Z Challenge for bloggers running in the month of April. The gist of this challenge was we were supposed to submit one post a day except for Sundays for the entire month of April. As it stands right now, I'm 3 post behind. I should be submitting my Z post right now. Yet here I am with my W post.


What's interesting is I had an idea I would wind up picking a movie for W. I even knew which movie, 2000's 'Way of the Gun' starring Ryan Phillippe and Benicio del Toro. To me, this movie is a surprisingly overlooked classic. The beginning scene, featuring a young Sarah Silverman (trust me, if you're familiar with her you'll recognize her instantly) sets the tone for this exercise in double crosses. The plot, which is simple enough to cover in one sentence, is the least complicated thing about this movie. A couple of unscrupulous guys (Phillippe and del Toro) over hear a surrogate mother (Juliette Lewis) is getting $1 million for carrying the baby to full term and they decide to kidnap her not knowing who the surrogate parents are.

There's way more going on here than I care to get into or I'd dull the experience of this movie for you. Just know that this was the next movie written by Academy Award winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for the movie he wrote before this one, The Usual Suspects. If you found yourself confused by the earlier film's plot, don't even bother looking at WotG. Alliances are broken almost as quickly as they are formed in this movie. Instead of a 'reminds me of...', I'll do you one better this time: this movie is almost a hommage to another movie called "____ _______ And ___ ________ ___", the too nameless protagonists/antagonists actually refer to themselves in the former pair's real names.


That's it... for that pick anyway.

The other Bizzee Pick that made it's way into this post, I won't actually review here or go into more detail about this movie. I just felt like adding this movie to this list because I've talked about it so often these past few weeks, I take that as a sign that this was meant for me to write about it.

A super-hero murder mystery. #5WordFilmPlots pic.twitter.com/wD0GrcOTiF

— Smokkee G Singleton (@MrGBIZ) April 30, 2015

And I have already. I'll address the source material eventually but just know that although it's a graphic novel (ok, comic book!), it's number 227 on the essential reading list "1,001 Books to Read Before You Die".


NOW, that's it. Catch you next post.. in about an hour.

Smokkee    

U is for Ultron (#AtoZChallenge)

This will probably be the last thing I post about 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' before I go see it the movie when it comes out this weekend. Probably. No guarantees.

I can't think of any other movie I was this excited about seeing. 'Watchmen' might have came close but I didn't get all Trekkie-over-'Star Trek' about it. This movie isn't even a movie anymore. It's an event that must be experienced. I know from experience. That experience was the first Avenger film experience.

I'm grown but I felt like the world's oldest teenager when Hulk beat up Loki in the first film. To me, that scene is up there with the other great fight scenes from other movie events like Neo fighting multiple copies of Agent Smith and Luke fighting Darth Vader (both fights). Those movies transcended traditional films to me but I'm sure I can't be the only person who compares every major action movie or whatever to the classics like these three films.

I also have a feeling I'll be experiencing a bit more deja vu with this film. We already know where this movie leads to, kind of like knowing where 'Matrix: Reloaded' was leading to. I didn't think 'The Matrix' was going to be as good as it was when it came out. I'll gladly admit I was wrong about that and I'll openly admit I was wrong thinking that as good as the first film was, the sequel would also suck.

    
What's next after Ultron? Well, it might be the same as before Ultron. The next episode of the TV show, 'Marvel's Agents of SHIELD', is already slated as being the event that leads directly into Age of Ultron. If that's not enough to get you to watch the show, just know that if the final episodes of the season do not deal directly with the aftermath of AoU, they at least set the scene for what's next to come in the MCU. it's just too bad I'm gonna catch it after the fact. I got my first Chicago CUBS game of the season to attend. Thankfully, I do have Hulu Plus.


Later WORLD.
Smokkee

T is for Transsiberian (#AtoZChallenge)

Confession time. As much as I love the movies that make my list, sometimes I really hate writing #BizzeePick reviews. Never has this been more true than for trying to write a review for Transsiberian. There's not much I can tell you about anything without taking something away from the experience of this movie in the first place. The reason I love these movies so much are also the reason these movies are so hard to review.

I seriously can't tell you anything about this movie Transsiberian without giving too much away. I got to start with a 'reminds me of' since there's not much I can tell you. There's another movie about a traveling couple, a few traveling couples actually, called 'A Perfect Getaway' with Timothy Olyphant and Steve Zahn. This movie kind of puts me in the mind of that movie but it's much better executed. The twist isn't that cheesy either.

Carlos showing a lil something to Jessi

Now to the movie itself. The couple here, Roy and Jessi (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) are taking a cross continental
train between Asia and Europe. They meet a fellow traveler named Carlos and his girlfriend. Then things get thrown through a loop when an officer looking for smugglers (Ben Kingsley, as menacing as ever) appears.

OK. Everybody in this movie is excellent for starters. Secondly, this movie completely sucker punches you with the developments that happen on screen. None of what happens is unnatural, forced. Every character's decision, as rash as it may be at times, makes sense. Not many movies can claim that.

Not many straightforward movies like this, one that's completely understood in one take, gives you this much food for thought after the first feeding. A second helping isn't necessary but it goes down just as well as the first screening. Again, how many movies can say that?







This #BizzeePick can.

Later, WORLD.

Smokkee

   

S is for Songs In The Key Of My Life (#AtoZChallenge)

Everybody would describe life as one thing or another. The way I describe life is everybody's life is like a movie that only they see. That's how I view mine. Starring me, lol. Well, most movies have soundtracks. Mine is no different. This post is basically what 'Smokkee: the Movie's soundtrack would be. These are the songs that are huge in my life for some reason or another.


The entire 2 disc set of Stevie Wonder's Songs In The Key Of Life:

First off, let me explain this: I grew up listening to Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye, of course Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, all thanks to my moms Jeanette Singleton (who became Jeanette Thomas after her marriage). Every Friday she would play songs like GQ's 'Disco Nights' would play for as long as I could remember. It was our way of winding down from our long week's work.

Of course you knew Stevie's award winning album would somehow make it's way into this post. The post's title paying homage was a clue that's too obvious to be ignored.  The thing about this album is every song on both of these discs has been my favorite at some point in my life and songs like 'Ordinary Pain', 'Ngiculela-Es Una Historia - I Am Singing' and 'As' never leave out of my music rotation. 

    

Commodores: Zoom

 This song is a constant reminder to me that not only is it cool to let the mind wander and think of how this world can be a better place, especially when you're surrounded by nothing but turmoil and chaos, sometimes, this thinking is a necessity. That's what I get from this song. Of course, every student learns a different lesson.





Randy Crawford: Give Me The Night

One of the first neo-jazz songs that I fell in love with. It's also a blueprint of my 20's.



Creative Source: I'd Find You Anywhere




Audio Two: What More Can I Say

The first cassette tape I could ever say that was mine and mine alone.





Prince "Purple Rain"
Lynard Skynard: Freebird
Rolling Stones: Sympathy For The Devil
Pink Floyd "Wish You Were Here"

When I first got into music videos on MTV, the most dominant music was rock n roll and Michael Jackson. They would play hard rock, soft rock, soft rock, Mike, hard rock, Michael, etc. If you remember the time (bad pun, I know), then you know I ain't lying. It didn't get rock n roll at first. I didn't really get rock really until Purple Rain, the movie and the album, and then it clicked. When it did, Lynard Skynard's Freebird became my unofficial official theme song, the Stone's Sympathy For The Devil become my mantra, and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" became my favorite rock album not named "Purple Rain".

Isaac Hayes: No Name Bar (From the "Shaft" soundtrack),
N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton, 
The D.O.C.: No One Can Do It Better,
2Pac: 2Pacalypse Now,

"Who is the man..?" Everybody knows Hayes' theme for Shaft but the song that I most relate to is this instrumental. I loved this beat when it was sampled by Dr Dre for the D.O.C. for the aptly titled "The D.O.C. and the Doctor" on his debut album 'No One Can Do It Better' but I didn't research the origin of the beat until I heard 2Pac use it for "A Soldier's Story" from his first (and best IMO) album '2Pacalypse Now'. These 2 hip hop albums are completely different but both made me love hip hop more than ever. If you ask me, the album that stood out as the best around that time frame was NWA's Straight Outta Compton, the first hip hop album I felt wasn't afraid to tell it like it is. Honarable mention should go out to Slick Rick's "The Further Adventures Of Slick Rick" and Eric B and Rakim's "Paid In Full" for cementing my love for hip hop like no album before them but these 3 albums I named above made me think that even I could be a rapper, something most inner city kid these days believe anyway. "Straight Outta Compton" told a story that I was seeing at that time, and one that I would eventually experience personally a few years later, on a level Ice T reached a few years prior to this album's release. I think the fact that NWA was only a few years older than me had a great effect on me too. They did this. I can do this too.

Boys II Men "CooleyHighHarmony"
Jodeci "Forever My Lady"
Mint Condition: "From The Mint Factory"

The first few slow cuts albums I could claim for myself. I found these albums all on my own while my moms was still bumping Heatwave, Stephanie Mills, etc. Of course I still loved here music; she just couldn't get into too much of these albums, though she would later tell me Boyz II Men's "II" album was pretty good. These albums were what I listened to my first year at Hyde Park Career Academy and I'm glad to say that 20 years later, these albums still hold up.

Nas: "Illmatic"
Common Sense: "Can I Borrow A Dollar?" / "Resurrection"
Psychodrama / Twista / Do Or Die / Crucial Conflict

Those 2 albums are standouts from the early 90's for me because they are the reasons I expanded my flow beyond gangster rap. Nas and Wu Tang Clan's "Enter The 36th Chambers" And Common Sense, who would become much more famous after dropping Sense from his name,  made me believe I really could become a rapper since he was not only from Chicago but from a 'hood not to far from me. They were conscience rappers that had me wanting to go the conscience route. A few years later, other Chicago acts like Psychodrama and Crucial Conflict gave me a sense of pride since they were blowing up on various levels. I had never been prouder of Chicago hip hop than when these acts along with Do Or Die and Twista had the whole city on their shoulders for a time being.

Nowadays, hip hop acts like J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Childish Gambino keep my ear since I've become almost exclusively a fan of conscience hip hop. And while I got love for Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Miguel, etc., they don't hold the same sway over me that the old school crooners do.  Nonetheless, if I was asked to list the most influential music of my lifetime, this list would be as good as you got.

Later, WORLD.

Smokkee 

R is for 'Resolution' (a #BizzeePick) (#AtoZChallenge)

Hello, WORLD! Smokkee here adding another movie to my favorite movie list, which I affectionately call my Bizzee Picks. Typically, the types of movies I add to this list are ones I'm more than sure most of yall haven't seen before, which is a travesty to me since these are some of the best movies of whatever genre they are a part of. Usually, that genre is horror and this post isn't an exception so to speak but it's not your typical horror movie either. There's no violent images, none of those cheesy, overused horror tropes like jump out scares, or those false scares started by amped up music letting you know something horrible is coming... and then the horror never shows. 

Wait, there is one that is used, a fairly common one at that. In fact, this movie puts me in the mind of another fairly recent horror movie that not only uses the same overused horror movie trope, it's named after it. And then they skewer it in ways that make them both stand out. The biggest difference between these two movies is the other is ultra gory for skewering purposes and this movie isn't, presumably for the exact same reason. 

Chris (left) and Mike having a heart to heart talk in 'Resolution'

Another movie it reminds me of, another Bizzee Pick at that.. but not a horror movie, is Storytelling. They are both essentially addressing the same subject matter, with equally shocking results. Now that I think about it, maybe Storytelling is a horror movie flick after all... It also doesn't have any violence, unless you count THAT infamous sex scene, but it does leave you feeling some type of way. As does this movie. Both movies even have almost the same line of dialogue about beginnings, middles, and ends...


Intrigued, yet? No? let me continue then.

The film I'm adding today is 2012's Resolution, written by Justin Benson and directed by Benson and Aaron Moorhead. You're probably familiar with this pair's last offering, 2014's genre defying movie Spring, or their high energy segment in the last movie in the horror anthology V/H/S franchise ('V/H/S Viral') called 'Bonestorm'. If you remember the scene with the skateboarders, you don't even have to go back and watch it to know which one was theirs.  While both of those are excellent, Resolution is my favorite work by this pair so far and got me eager for more.

The plot is fairly simple. A married man named Michael receives an email of his buddy Chris alone in some forest with some dog doing cocaine, talking to himself, just acting like he's losing his mind. Michael (played kind of stiffly, probably by design, by Peter Cilella) does what he feels is the right thing by leaving his pregnant wife for a week to try to convince Chris (a hilarious performance by Vinny Curran) to go to rehab. Mike didn't set out to leave his wife for a week's time, I'm sure, but it winds up being that long after he fails to get Chris to enter rehab and decides he'll just handcuff Chris to the wall of the house that Chris is residing in until he decides to give rehab a try. Wait, did I say it was house? I meant to say 'cabin in the woods' Chris is residing in at the time. 

You see where this is going, right?

Wrong. Absolutely wrong. One common thread that Bizzee Picks have in common is you can't look at the beginning of one and say "Oh, I know exactly where this is heading." I very rarely even like movies like that to begin with. I won't stop you from thinking you will but no, you won't. You won't even have a clue. 

A few things I should mention before I go in further and this is about as close as I get to revealing any spoilers. For starters, the freewheeling Chris didn't actually buy the drugs he was using; he doesn't seem to have any money nor any ambition towards getting any money. "I'm a junkie." he says at one point with as much pride in his voice as a newborn's father saying "It's a boy." 

Bryon (Bill Oberst) creeping out Mike.

The drugs were given to Chris by some mutual friends of Chris and Mike and it's implied that they are really bad guys now, something Mike isn't aware of since he hasn't seen them in quite some time. Also, that cabin in the woods they're in? It's not his either and on top of that, it's on an Indian reservation and the tribe's spokesman Charles (Zahn McClarnon) isn't too fond of these guys being here without the tribe's OK. Mike bribes him to let them stay for few more days but if he had any sense, he would have left, especially after the dog is brutally killed by either by the Mike's former friends or by Charles and the tribe.


The most disturbing detail I'll give you is the fact that Chris didn't actually send Mike any email to begin with....       


The plot basically juggles these tidbits over and over again for the first 45 minutes or so, forcing you to accept these as truths first and then daring you to see where this goes. And then it goes elsewhere. You see it early on in bits and pieces but it really starts to get surreal when Mike, right after the dog is murdered, tracks down the dog's real owner Byron (Bill Oberst Jr, who might not be a household name yet but is well known to Internet users as the guy who creeps you out in this video here) and gets seriously creeped out by this guy too when Byron tries to explain what happened to some French guys who were in the area working on something. 

Chris and Mike beginning to notice something isn't right in these woods..

This scene is like the Silencio scene from Mulholland Drive because it's the scene that divides the slow burning first half of the movie from the faster paced second half. Byron's theory regarding what's really going on just might be fairly accurate. After we get past this scene things start happening really fast and this movie moves from a buddy flick to something a lot more surreal. And just when you think our guys are finally clear of the insanity, the ending reveals itself to be one hell of a gut punch. 




 I won't say nothing else about this movie except if you're a fan cerebral movies or horror movies, this movie is for you. You'll definitely be thinking about it for a while after it ends. What else do you need to hear from me? Just

 
watch it. Trust me. You'll like it.


Later, WORLD.
Smokkee Singleton